Claudette's birthday!

I am a little ashamed of this, but it was Claudette's birthday gift and cake this year. One year, this was her cake and gift. For starters, I'm blaming my unreliable oven. This was supposed to be a mini layer cake, but when I turned out the first layer onto the cooling rack and the mushy, unbaked batter center fell out, well, it became a one layer cake. Although I had another cake mix, I just didn't have time to deal with starting from scratch. She seemed genuinely happy as she's someone who would've been happy receiving a stick of gum. But, to top it off, of course I could not find a candle in this house to stick in it or toothpicks to keep the plastic wrap from sticking to it, so I resorted to cutting a blue straw in thirds and using that. Worked well and didn't look too bad. Score one for ingenuity!!
In her little bag is a Panera gift card and some Crabtree and Evelyn hand renewal stuff for gardeners.